Abstract

This Ph.D. dissertation traces the emergence and development of an important current of socially engaged art in Central and Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. It examines various participatory, collaborative and dialogic projects in public spaces by contemporary artists, working in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. These works often directly engaged marginalized communities, such as the homeless, members of immigrant groups and the Roma. In various ways, these artworks revived leftist traditions in a local context where, as political ideologies and economic orders, socialism had become equated with authoritarianism and democracy with neoliberalism. Occurring at specific moments in time throughout the post-communist period, most often with the presence of both financial and institutional support from the USA and EU nations, specific contemporary art practices sought to reclaim public life and build inclusive public spheres as democratic forms within emerging civil societies. Relying on sociological theories of social and political capital, and on theories of civil societies in political science, my goal has been to identify the potentially transformative roles that socially engaged art forms played in the post-communist transition. Concerned with current socio-political issues and foregrounding spaces of participation and collaboration, such art practices implicitly proposed new modes for art’s communication with the viewer, explored notions of public space as the locus of constantly negotiated public spheres, and provoked discussions of viable forms of democracy.